Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Welcome to Wednesday Briefs, where authors post free
fiction of 1000 words or less each week.

I’m continuing the story of Willem and Torrey, whose
love for each other makes for an uneasy fit in an alien society. This week the
prompts were:

“Did you really think that would scare me?” or “Yo mama’s so
scary...” or “Suck on that, big boy!” or “This place made the Bates Motel look
like Disneyland...” or “I want my mummy!” or “You got candy? I only got rocks!”
or feature a haunted house or a vampire or any Halloween creature or have your
character in costume or use the Great Pumpkin or “When did you get to be so
smart?” or have a character playing a video game or have a potato sack race or
have a character watch NASCAR.

Sealed in Stone #19

“Once you are inside the nom, we cannot protect you,
not truly. We can only try.” Jayn sounded tired, and old. Lines of care creased
the skin bracketing her lips.

Willem adjusted his work belt, glad to be wearing
tools again. A sturdy chitin case at his feet held his larger tools. Though Jayn
was certain he’d been included on the team for reasons other than to do
stonework inside the nom, he still hoped for it. Humans had created works of
wonder inside Pesht, most known only through drawings and rumor. Havar’s Folly.
Vayna’s Chamber. The Throne of Kavra. If he could lay eyes on any of these
works… or create such a work of his own for the ages….

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, Kumbharani. I will honor the rules and not
present myself in any way that would tempt the nomari.”

“You only need worry about the queens or the
intelligent females. Warriors don’t care and workers care even less.” She
fussed with his veil. Men who went into the nom did so concealed from the hairs
on their head to the soles of their feet. He’d bathed and scrubbed and been
massaged with doje oil to dampen his scent. “We do not know why She sent for
you. Her reasons will become clear. She has promised to house the team safely,
and I assume that means you also.”

“You’re just concerned Torrey will have no one to
write to.” Willem worried about that himself. What if this was the Queen’s way
of taking that away? Torrey’s right to communicate with his kumbh was written
into the alliance, not Torrey’s right to communicate with him. Maybe Jayn was right. His and Torrey’s love for each other
provided avenues to control… and punishment.

Jayn laughed. “A scar does not make you ugly, or
less useful in bed. Not perfect enough to be a trophy, perhaps, but you could
serve very well in private. Junior queens with no means and no dominance or
power scheme to acquire males with less to offer than you. You are a son of
this kumbh, a skilled artisan, healthy and in your prime. Don’t think for a
moment you would not tempt any of them.” Her arms stretched above her head as
she reached for his veil and pulled it down over his face. Now she resembled
only a shadow, without features, only a voice. “You will be watched. If you see
my son, follow his lead in every encounter. He will let you know what to do.
And if you do not see him, stay with your team. Do your work. Never let
yourself be separated from them.”

A large palanquin waited in the courtyard. After placing
his case into a rack carried by a squat, silent nomari worker, he entered the
palanquin. Inside, he joined the rest of the team, four women wearing tool
belts just as he did, but without the obscuring veil.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Shel, giving the fabric a
tug. “Push it back. We know what you look like.”

Curtain in place, the conveyance lurched and rolled
for a moment, then balanced and they were on their way.

“The veil stays.” Lena Hal had a tiny voice but the
bite in it caused Shel to stop.

“And is he going to work in it? He can barely move.”

“Or breathe.” Willem lifted the gauzy material away
from his face and tucked it behind his shoulder. “Only until we get to the nom,”
he promised Lena, whose fierce glare he wanted to turn toward something else. “And
if the curtain opens, this comes right down.”

“This is some sort of queen game, you know. You shouldn’t
even be on a team, not any team that goes in there.”

“I’m the damn best artisan here.”

Marda Kwin shot him a look that said he’d have to
back up that statement later.

“And you’re male, which means we have to protect
your ass and make sure none of the junior queens catch sight of you or get
bright ideas. There are reasons men don’t go into the nom on work teams!”

Shel snorted. “He doesn’t even like women.”

“That doesn’t matter to them,” snapped Lena.

Willem’s cheeks burned. It was getting damn hot in
this closed container. Leaving the kumbh was the strangest thing he’d ever
done, sitting with a group of women in a luxurious box borne upon the shoulders
of immense nomari workers bred specifically to be beasts of burden. He was
leaving everything he knew behind and going toward things that would be
completely alien. Starting with this.

“I know what to do. I won’t show my face, any part
of my body. I won’t speak. I will always stand behind the women.”

Lena exchanged glances with Marda, Shel, and a
cutter named Rue before turning back to him. “When did you get to be so smart?”

“The day Torrey left and I realized I wouldn’t see
him again unless I was smart.”

“Just because we’re going to the Queen’s chambers
doesn’t mean any of us will see Her, or him.”

“And even if we do,” said Marda, “what are you going
to do, run up and kiss him? Do I have to explain how that’s not a good idea?”

Rue barked with laughter. “Maybe it would be. I’ve
heard about her little quirks.”

Willem wanted to hear more about Cyrrhi’s ‘quirks’
but to his disappointment Lena stopped Rue from continuing. “There won’t be any
of that. We’re going in for a job. We’re going to do a job. We’re going to
carve a bathing chamber for the Queen’s Chosen. It might take us months, maybe
a year. Maybe we should wager our chances of going that long without either
Cyrrhi or one of her junior queens snatching Will here.”

Monday, October 28, 2013

Alicia Nordwell wants to know what readers think about her book cover. So here's your chance to give it to her straight. Your comment might also win a copy of the book.

Feedback

Scary word, right? For readers there’s the question: Will
the author appreciate my thoughts? How should I address their writing? What is
and is not appropriate to say? Discussions have raged on Gay Authors about this
very subject. Authors wonder why people don’t comment if feedback is sparse,
some agonize over that or bad reviews. We all love good reviews, of course,
lol!

I’m an avid reader myself, and of course, an author. I live
on feedback. I relish every bit of constructive criticism I receive, grin when
I get encouragement, and a few times… I’ve dearly needed the thoughts sent to
me by readers when I was about to give up. That’s one of the many reasons why I
like posting free fiction. Okay, I’m just loose for feedback, and I get more
when you guys can actually read my stories! :P

I did receive a good bit of feedback from a reader on
Goodreads for Picked at the Peak, which was great. One of their comments was
that the cover was ‘less than good’. I haven’t heard back on WHY though, and
it’s driving me bonkers! I also foray into cover creation, and since this was a
self-published novella, I did the cover myself.

What do you think of it? The truth now! :P I can take it.

Okay, now that I’ve used you all :P In thanks I do have one
final contest. One person who shared their thoughts on the cover (remember,
honest, I can’t fix it if there’s something wrong if no one tells me!) will win
a free copy of Picked at the Peak. Then, in thanks to everyone who has followed
along to each hop spot, I am going to take 25% off the price!

A big thank you has to go to Tali for hosting me. I can’t
say enough about the awesome support network of authors I’ve found in the last
few years!

Picked
at the Peak

Synopsis:

Aislin was surrounded by his extensive, but close-knit,
family his whole life. He was the younger brother or the cousin they needed to
protect and the kid’s favorite uncle, but he was never just Aislin. His
overbearing family rarely listened to him, so sure they knew best. His adult
years had all been about proving that the accident that damaged his leg as a
teenager didn’t limit him.

He started a microbrewery business, bought a winery and
decided to have... a baby.

The news shocked his family and friends, but he was determined
to be a single parent. Not that Aislin wouldn’t love to have a partner, but
dating never really worked out for him. It didn’t matter if he was gay, or
single, or had a handicap. He was more than prepared.

He was not
expecting the drastic change the next nine months would wreak on his life.

Excerpt:

"How
exactly does a gay man get pregnant?" Conn asked as the room fell silent.

Teague
smirked. "Yeah, was it the old-fashioned way, insert slot A into slot B?
Who’s the baby daddy? Are you going to start showing soon?" His wife
smacked him on the arm. "Ow."

"Don't
be vulgar." Karen sat on the arm of his chair. She gave him a warning
look. "Let Aislin talk."

Aislin
sighed. "I am not pregnant, you idiots." He glared at his cousin and
his brother. "A woman is having the baby, not me." Teague’s raised
eyebrow and open mouth made him hold up his hand. “And no, I didn’t get her
pregnant the old-fashioned way either.”

"A
woman?" His cousin Nora was sitting next to him. She'd just finished
feeding her daughter Anna and was trying to burp the fussy baby. She frowned at
him. "Is she someone we know?"

"No,
she's not a friend of mine or anything. Here, let me." He took the
squirming infant and set her against his shoulder. He gave her a few strong
pats on her back and then ran his fingers up her spine. Her little back arched,
and she burped. He rubbed her silky hair, kissing the side of her head before
handing her back to her mom.

"Thanks.
You've always been good with the kids," Nora said. “How exactly is a woman
having a baby for you? Why haven’t we heard anything about this before?"

Aislin
looked around the living room. His entire family had come together in his house
for Thanksgiving, and as big as it was, the living room was still packed with
his family including all his aunts, uncles, and cousins. The older kids were
all running around upstairs except for his brother's twin toddlers who were
sitting in a playpen in the corner and the baby in Nora’s arms.

His little
announcement had stopped everyone's conversations, and they were all staring at
him. Most of the guys had taken up the chairs and seats near the TV to watch
football, and the women were discussing their game plan to hit the early Black
Friday sales. His father had muted the TV as soon as Aislin dropped his little
conversation bomb though, and they had all turned to stare at him.

Aislin
scanned the faces nearest to him, his brother and cousins. "Look, between
the eight of you there are twenty two kids under the age of fifteen in this
house. I love each and every one of them, and it’s great being Uncle Aislin,
but I've always wanted to be a dad. It felt like now was the right time."

He hesitated
to look at his mom. A lot of Aislin’s fear of telling his family hinged on how
his mother would react. Would she think he was doing the wrong thing to have a
baby? His dad might have been the one to lay down the law when he and Teague
had gotten in trouble while growing up, but they'd both would’ve preferred
facing his wrath than their mother's disappointment. Sorcha Kavanagh could be a
very scary woman.

Another of
his cousins moved over and sat down on the couch on the other side of him and
patted his knee. "Well, I'm happy for you," Carlyn said.

He winced
and pulled away. After most of the family dinners the women would surround him
on the couch. He got to play with the babies, whom he enjoyed, but sometimes
they forgot how sensitive his bad leg was. He pulled his forearm crutch up and
leaned it against the couch next to his thigh to create a barrier.

"Thanks."
He finally glanced at his mother but her face was still a blank canvas, her
emotions hidden as she listened to him answer all the questions coming his way.
He bit his lip. When was she going to say something?

Roisin
cleared her throat. "Not that we aren't all happy for you, but what
exactly brought this desire on to have kids now?" His aunt was sitting
next to his mother on a love seat in the corner by the playpen where they could
coo over the twins.

Aislin
looked at baby Anna, her body seemingly boneless now that she was sated, as she
snuggled innocently in Nora’s arms. He reached out to touch one finger to her
petal soft cheek. "Well, Nora and Luke had just had Anna. I was visiting
them in the hospital, and I kept thinking that I wanted that.”

The desire
had been so strong he’d had to leave and find a quiet place to think. The
hospital atrium had a small fountain he’d sat at many times before while
waiting for a niece or nephew to make their way into the world. He’d sat there
for an hour before a dad had walked over with a little boy and coaxed him to
throw in a coin. He wished, in a sweet voice, for his new baby brother to be
born that week while a very pregnant, and exhausted looking, mom stood waiting
for them. He’d known right then, as he watched the man pick up and laugh with
his son, that he wasn’t willing to wait anymore. Aislin sighed. “I wanted a
baby of my own. I wanted to be able to take home a beautiful miracle and be a
daddy. So I decided to look into my options."

His dad
cleared his throat. "So what exactly did you mean when you said that
you're having a baby? Are you adopting this woman’s child?"

"No."
He looked over at his dad who sat with his arms crossed over his chest. "I
found a surrogate. She is actually having my baby. I didn't really expect it
all to happen so fast. She got pregnant on our first try. We found out three
weeks ago that it worked."

His fingers
pinched the crease on his dress pants. It was all still so surreal. He’d
expected the process to take longer even though he'd been planning every step
along the way. He’d learned that his baby would come at its own pace, regardless
of his own expectations. "So, according to the doctor, sometime late next
July or early August, my son or daughter will be born."

"Why
didn't you tell us?" Aislin wasn't fooled by the soft tone in his mother's
voice. He sucked in a quick breath and let it out with a heavy sigh.

"I
don't know, Mom. I wasn't sure of how it would all work, and by the time I'd
talked to a lawyer, found a surrogate, and we started the whole process I
couldn't help but feel like it was sort of private. How was I supposed to tell
you that I was going to a clinic to have my sperm inserted into a strange woman
so we could hopefully make a baby?" A blush washed over him and he felt
his face heat just saying that.

Teague
snickered, and Karen smacked him.

“Intrauterine
insemination isn’t any more successful than the average traditional attempts to
make a baby. I thought I had a few months to figure out how to tell you. I
just,” he shrugged one shoulder, “I wanted to do that part on my own.”

A look of
hurt crossed over her face.

With his
large family, privacy was in short supply. After his accident when he was
sixteen most of his family members tended to be a little smothering in their
desire to make sure he was okay. Their behavior made him fight for his
independence even more after he recovered and eventually led to him moving
farther away from the family than anyone else.

He had to
hope his mother would understand. If he could only explain the way he felt, the
anxiety and fear the IUI wouldn’t work, or his worry that somehow his
disability would prevent him from becoming a dad. "I didn't do it to hurt
anyone. I only waited three weeks to tell the family that the baby was actually
a reality until now because I wanted to have everyone all together for
Thanksgiving. Sometimes I can't really believe that it's actually happening
still and," he hesitated, "I wasn't sure how everyone would
react."

His mother
spoke carefully, "Did you think that we wouldn't welcome your child just
as much as your brother's and your cousins’ babies?"

Aislin
blinked. "No, of course not!" The thought had never crossed his mind.
He knew that his parents wouldn't treat any child he had differently from their
other grand kids, and neither would anyone else in the family. "I don't
know if I could explain why I wanted to do this on my own. I only had enough
money for two tries with a surrogate, but I didn't expect it to really happen
the first time. I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up if it didn't work,
maybe, but I didn't mean to hurt anyone. When it did, I wanted to wait to make
sure nothing went wrong."

Teague
cleared his throat. "How are you going to do everything on your own? Kids
aren't exactly easy to take care of." He glanced at Aislin's crutch.

That
argument Aislin was prepared for. "I managed to keep Tasha and Sammy
overnight didn't I? We were perfectly fine on our own. I'm pretty sure I can
handle one baby."

"You
did," said Teague's wife Karen. "But there is a big difference from
babysitting to having a baby dependent on you twenty-four hours a day."

"And
each of you made that leap with help from the family," Aislin pointed out,
"and so will I. Look, I know better than any of you what my limitations
are. I would never have considered having a baby if I didn't think I could take
care of him or her. Yes, I have a bad leg, and I need a crutch to walk.” He
didn’t mention the pain he lived with or how much he could ache at the end of
the day. Pain was a fact of life for him and wasn’t going to change, but he
wasn’t going to let that reality dictate his life.

“I’m not
really fast. I have a bad leg and use a crutch but I still have a free arm.
Besides, they have those little baby hammock things. I'm sure I can use one of
those if I need to carry more stuff than I can handle, or I’ll make extra
trips.” Aislin’s throat burned as he tried to explain to them how he was
feeling. “I'm already half in love with the baby just knowing that he or she is
a reality, and it’s only been a few weeks. In nine months they’ll be in my
arms, and I'd really like to know that my family is happy for me."

He looked at
his parents, holding his breath. His father had uncrossed his arms, and his
mother was wiping a tear off her cheek.

Friday, October 25, 2013

If you’re looking for a dark, richly detailed story
set in South America’s Andes mountains, check out my short “The Seventh Sacrifice,”
released by Storm Moon Press today.

Beltran is a peaceful man, but when his Bolivian
cousin is brutalized, he seeks out a native sorcerer in a quest for vengeance. He doesn't know the attractive shaman, Katari, is an amaru demon,
a serpent shifter determined to break an ancient spell. Beltran’s about to discover the price of black magic.

This story was originally included in the
Devil’s Night anthology and is now being offered for individual purchase.

One of the cool things about this story—at least for
me—is that it has locations I know from from my time in Bolivia. The roof and interior of the Iglesia de San Francisco, for example, and the city of La Paz. I walked
the same streets Beltran does and shopped at the Mercado de las Brujas. And the
things my mother-in-law told me about that church and the market behind it made
their way into this story. I just take the story in a very dark and non-consensual direction, so fair
warning.Here's a snippet from the beginning:

Marisol had told him the shop to
look for, that it would have an orange awning with a sign proclaiming it to be
the house of guardian angels. Two angels
hugged the words, though the beings looked more like winged serpents. In fact, they looked a bit like demons.

Beltran thought them fitting. Angels had little enough to do with the
native religion.

He angled his way through the street’s
milling crowd of colorful cholas and
photo-snapping tourists until he reached the shop entrance. Two stone steps flanked by tables of
packaged, prefabricated charms led to the narrow hole-in-the-wall that
constituted a store. Every spare millimeter
of space was packed with arcane objects.
Fully furred llama fetuses with huge, black eyes and grimacing teeth
hung from a pole over the doorway, while more of the same—mummified and without fur—lay
piled in baskets. The dried husks of
armadillos, toads, and starfish held sway among racks of cheap beads, brass
bells, and trays of colored powders.
Beltran hoped the powders were herbs, but at least one looked like dried
blood, and he knew the others could be anything from antlers to hooves, teeth,
or bones.

But what caught his eye next, and took
away his already scanty breath, was the man sitting on a stool just inside the
doorway. Black hair, straight and
shining, framed a brown face with strong features and high cheekbones. The heavy mane cascaded behind broad
shoulders and a red poncho of alpaca wool.
As the man rose to his feet, Beltran saw that he was taller than most
native men, with a wiry, powerful frame.
The shopkeeper’s eyes commanded him most of all: deep and black, they locked
onto his with a hunger so fierce, the compulsion in them made him quiver.

Holy
Mother of God,
Beltran thought, forcing himself to breathe normally. Marisol
never told me her shaman would be gorgeous!

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Welcome to Wednesday Briefs, where authors post free
fiction of 1000 words or less each week.

I’m continuing the story of Willem and Torrey, whose
love for each other makes for an uneasy fit in an alien society. This week the
prompts were: “Who the fuck made
you emperor?” or use a tootsie roll pop or use the evil eye or “My Aunt Fanny
has bigger boobs than you do!” or “You win some, you lose some...” or use: a
pirate, a gentleman, and a sheep or make a reference to any REM song or “She/he
asked you to do what?” or “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” or “Two
plus two equals what?”

Sealed in Stone #18

“Three greater and two lesser, my Queen.” Torrey
leaned into Cyrrhi’s hand and relaxed to her kiss upon his hair. Lately when
she touched him, he wanted to touch her back.

It had been a long day of audiences followed by drafting
of letters. The goldsmithing kumbh, the Kasarim, desired an alliance with one
of Pesht’s younger queens and Cyrrhi had questioned the request. Another queen
had asked to choose the same youth a year before, but the kumbh declined that
petition. Torrey had read the letters the Kasarim presented. That of the young
man, Alber, convinced him the match was wanted by both. After listening to his
opinion, Cyrrhi approved the union and he’d helped word the official consent.

“You are a great help to me. Greater than I could
have hoped. Though I take Hari to my bed and favor his kram between my legs,
you do not demand to take his place. Perhaps you are relieved?” Amusement warmed
her voice and glowed in her golden eyes.

Torrey flushed slightly. Stories abounded of queens
who’d destroyed the men they could not possess. Fortunately, she did possess
him. But desire? What he felt for Cyrrhi was complicated—woven of kindness,
necessity, and growing admiration for her adept politics—and it felt terribly
close to love. The only jealousy he’d detected had been the night before when
Cyrrhi visited his chamber to see the gift he had received. Willem’s starflower
carving rested upon the table beside his bed. She’d caressed the smooth white
petals with her fingertips and watched his face.

Now she drew those fingertips along the bared skin
of his arm, awakening a shiver of arousal. “Are you relieved, my Chosen, because
I have not asked you for that?”

“You desire Hari, my Queen. He desires you and I… I
do not want what Hari wants. I know you know this. Hari can give you things I
cannot.”

She nodded and looked past him, to the closed door
of the chamber. “Yes, he does give me that. His body craves what mine craves. But
you are my Chosen, my match in mind and soul. Sovesa guided me well. You bring a
sweetness, a purity of heart and purpose, to every hour I spend with you. Not
even Arton, who I loved in every way, wanted so little for himself as you. This
cannot continue. I wish for you to be happy here, with me.”

“I am happy, my Queen.”

It was a lie, of course. One he hoped she would not
detect. Happiness came when he read letters Willem had written, or when he lay in
his bed, alone in his chamber late at night, gazing upon a stone starflower
whitened by moonlight.

“I think you will be, very soon.” Her lips touched
his and Torrey inhaled the exciting musk of a queen on the edge of estrous. It
awakened his every nerve. “I have decided to give you a gift.”

* * * *

“She asked you to do what?”

Jayn frowned down at Willem. He had followed her
order to be seated and now he knew why she’d asked. The request was shocking.

“Pesht’s Queen has asked for a team of our workers
to construct a new room in her chambers. And she specifically asked for you.”

Torrey.
There
could be no other reason. Willem’s heart hammered at his breastbone. “Me? Why? Men
aren’t permitted on work teams—”

“Ordinarily, yes, that would be true.” Jayn sighed
and lowered her body onto the chair beside his. “The dangers are great. Kidnapping,
rape… mateless queens commit these acts far too often in the face of temptation.
You will have to be heavily guarded. Cyrrhi has sent an escort of warriors. I
will be sending a team headed by Lena Hal, perhaps with Shel as banker mason.”

“Will I see Torrey?” If they were going to the Queen
Chambers….

“She did not say. She only said she wishes for
stoneworkers to prepare a chamber as a gift for her Chosen.” Jayn’s fierce pale
gaze fastened on his hopeful one. “I cannot tell if Torrey has pleased her and
this chamber is to be his reward—or if he has displeased her and you are going
there to build his tomb. All we know of what goes on in the nom comes from
those queens with whom we are allied, if they tell us anything at all… or
Torrey’s letters to you. Has he said anything? Something unusual? Something
curious?”

Willem shook his head. His hair was longer than it
had been. He’d stopped cutting it when he quit working with heavy blocks of
stone. “No. He sounds careful, but not like he’s scared. We have words”—he caught
himself, but Jayn simply smiled. Of course she knew—“he never used any to say
he was in trouble. Just ones to ask if I was. I can write him a letter and ask—”

“No time for that. We have too much to do to prepare
you.”

“For what? I already know how to carve, better than
anyone.”

“Ha! Yes, you managed to show off your skill, didn’t
you? Sending a gift to my son! I would not have allowed it.” Willem squirmed. He’d
taken advantage of Jayn’s absence and his knowledge of her office to affix her
seal of approval to the package. Now he could not meet her eyes, knowing she’d
dismissed her second because of it. “The bad part of this is Cyrrhi should not
even know you exist. You were never
offered! No, if she knows of you, that’s Torrey’s doing.”

“You encouraged him to write to me!”

“No, I discouraged him!” The words stung like chips
of flying stone. “I told him to communicate through me, but he insisted on writing directly to you and in doing so he
revealed you. He revealed a weapon that can be turned against him.”

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Welcome to Wednesday Briefs, where authors post free
fiction of 1000 words or less each week.

I’m continuing the story of Willem and Torrey, who
are struggling to keep their love on an alien world. This week the prompts were: “It had to be you” or use keys in some
way or have a character bake a cake or “He was hung like...” or use a fan
dancer in some way or “I thought he’d never finish” or “where there's a will,
there’s a way” or “nothing but a heartache”.

Sealed in Stone #17

Willem ground his palms against his eyes, then
blinked again at the paper he was reading. He could only stare at ink strokes so
long before he wanted to take up a grindstone and do some real work. Protracted
argument had worked to get Jayn to allow him to turn the sitting area of
Torrey’s apartment—he would never think of it as his own—into a modest
workshop. He could shape stone, at least, in his spare time and do small work.
He’d made a vase out of a block of green onyx for Jayn. She’d pronounced the
workmanship excellent and he’d last seen it sitting on her desk, holding a
spray of long stemmed golden trumpets.

They’d reached a kind of equilibrium. She tried to
understand him… and he tried to pretend he found any of the words on these
papers interesting.

Your
education should have extended beyond numbers and science. He
heard her voice in his head every time he balked at lessons. It was a mistake to stop teaching you
civilized arts just because you scarred your face.

She had based that decision more on an attempt to
separate him as much as possible from her son, not thinking through the
situation. His and Torrey’s friendship had endured, and grown, and now she was
trying to remedy her error with books and tutors. Like Infida, the rotund woman
instructing him now, showing him selected passages from history texts and
trying to impress upon him the importance of understanding human interaction
with the nom.

“Our reproduction is adversely affected when our
females live inside the nom. Too many eggs release at once, too many are
fertilized and implant, too many fetuses develop. Seven or eight or more is not
unusual. These pregnancies do not succeed and often the mothers are lost as
well.”

“So we moved outside.” He knew this part of the
lesson already.

“We did. The First Mothers at Eshuun made a pact
with their Queen. So many turnings ago! They made a pact to protect our
women—and our men. The nomari find our men desirable. Useful. They crave males
for pleasure and, during their nuptial phases, for crude copulation. All other
things for which they find us useful—our contributions to their commerce and
economy, our art, our prowess at innovation and implementation of new
ideas—pale next to their sexual use of our men.”

“The reason we control… regulate”—his use of the word caused
Infida to arch an eyebrow with approval—“access to our men.”

“Yes, yes! They cannot take our men too young,
something they would gladly do if their tendencies were not restrained. They can
only take our men by trading power to us for them. Alliances with queens are
key. They connect us to trade routes, resources, important commodities. Food,
for example. Nomari workers are more numerous and more efficient at producing
food than we are.”

“Which frees us to concentrate on commerce and
playing power games.”

“Power games, as you call them, are the highest
level of protection for this kumbh. For all kumbhs. Playing them well is why
the Bhesarim thrive where others struggle.”

And how Torrey’s sacrifice could be justified. One
young man—one male—was a small price to pay for influence with Pesht’s Queen.

“And my learning this is going to help Torrey? I
don’t see how.”

“You learning anything at all is debatable. The only
thing you understand is building walls. Walls against knowledge are dangerous.”
The way Infida lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him was not new.
What was new was the sharpness of her rebuke.

Willem knew he tried her patience, though he didn’t
really intend to. He held out the long piece of paper he’d worked on all night.
“You told me to write out the connections between Pesht and the kumbhs. I did
it this way.”

He’d sketched the many interactions with drawings
and a few notations, rather than write them out. His first attempt at writing everything
down had led him to scratch out too many words and ruin too much paper. In the
end, the chart had been easier. He’d even put a key at the bottom to help explain
the more complicated parts.

Infida peered at it through the lenses perched on
her nose. Her mother had come from Eshuun, where humans tended to be weak-eyed.

“How fascinating! It seems where there’s a will,
there’s a way!” She laughed and lowered the paper. “So you have been listening
and reading the texts.”

“Best I could.”

“Judging by this, you have just become my best
student.”

“I want to help Torrey. I just don’t see how
learning any of this will do that.”

“No chart can explain the intersections of knowledge
and trust. You are useful to us. We are making you useful to him. Leave that
part to the Kumbharani.” She gathered up her texts, including the one he had
been reading. “I think I can give you the rest of the afternoon to yourself, young
scholar.”

She swept from the room, paper in hand. At least she’d
relieved him from having to read more eye-numbing texts.

Taking advantage of afternoon’s good light, Willem
went to his work bench. He’d obtained a small block of pristine white marble
and had nearly finished working it into a cluster of starflowers just like
those that bloomed on the vines around Torrey’s window. Torrey had told him on
more than one occasion that whenever he saw a starflower he thought of Willem.

People had told Willem he’d think of Torrey less as
the days passed, but that hadn’t happened. He missed his friend’s laugh, his
kisses, the scent of his hair and the taste of his skin.

One day soon he would just die of the yearning, and
then where would Jayn and her stupid lessons be?

Willem put the starflowers in a box and sealed it, to
be sent along with his next letter.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

One of my favorite writers, Michael Rupured, has a new release from MLR that ties murder, 60's era Washington, DC and the gays right movement of that era into a shiny, thrilling bow. And he's giving away not one, not two, but TEN books during his blog tour! Check this out...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks
so much, Tali, for inviting me to your blog to talk about my new release, After
Christmas Eve, from MLR Press. Can you believe it’s already been a year since I
first turned up on your blog? Funny how time flies when you’re having fun!

To celebrate the 10/11 release of my second novel,
I’m giving away 10 copies (ebooks) through an 11-stop blog hop. To enter,
comment before midnight, October 25, 2013 on any of my posts on the eleven
participating blogs. Be sure to include an email address.

I
took French in junior high and high school and plodded through three semesters
of Russian in college. I never learned enough to think in either language. I
was too busy for all the required studying in college, but high school was a
different story. Five years is a lot of time to have learned so little. I
should have been thinking in French.

Becoming
a good writer is like learning to think in French. The more you practice, the
better you get. Eventually, good writing becomes second nature. Then the
writer's mind is free to focus on more interesting elements—like pacing, plot,
and character development. With experience, these things become second nature,
too, and the focus turns to new ways to improve the writing.

I've
spent hundreds of hours ripping apart the work of the Robot Unicorns (writers
in my critique group), listening to what others said about the same piece, and
noting things others saw that I missed. Now that I'm paying attention, I notice
the story-telling techniques in books, movies, and television dramas. Thinking
about how the writer has crafted the story is great practice.

After Christmas Eve benefitted from having gone through the publication process
with my last book. Experience is a great teacher. Writing three books (my unpublished
memoir and two novels) has taught me a lot. Now I feel a little more like I
know what I'm doing.

Here’s
the blurb:

As Philip Potter wraps up his
last minute shopping on Christmas Eve, 1966, James Walker, his lover of six
years, takes his life. Unaware of what waits for him at home, Philip drops off
gifts to the homeless shelter, an act of generosity that later makes him a
suspect in the murder of a male prostitute.

Two men drive yellow
Continentals. One is a killer, with the blood of at least six hustlers on his
hands. Both men have secrets. And as Philip is about to discover, James had
kept secrets, too. But James wasn’t trying to frame him for murder…

*This is the third of eleven stops on the After Christmas Eve Blog Hop. Excerpts
appear in serial form along the hop, beginning with my post at http://www.shiraanthony.com.

Excerpt
#3 of 11

The very idea of asking anyone
for money rubbed Philip the wrong way. He prided himself on his self-sufficiency.
Asking Roland Walker was the last resort. All other options had failed. James
meeting with the father he hadn’t seen or spoken to in the last five years was
a testament to his desperation.

Philip stopped in front of
Walgreen’s, admiring the attractive display of powder blue, sea foam green,
canary yellow, and fire engine red transistor radios in the window. He bought
two of each color and an extra red one—James’s favorite color. While he waited
to have Daddy’s Helpers wrap the radios, he enjoyed a piece of cherry pie and a
hot cup of coffee at the fountain. His impulse purchases when money was such an
issue were blameworthy, but he knew James wouldn’t mind. A few more dollars
wouldn’t make much difference anyway.

On the way home, he detoured by
the Relief Society Shelter for wayward boys where his lover had often stayed
before Philip had rescued him from the streets. Perhaps a cheery new radio
would lift the spirits of the boys who’d spend this Christmas there. Philip
knew James would appreciate the gesture even more than the watch that waited
for him under the tinsel-laden tree in the G Street apartment they shared.

Philip opened the shelter’s
door, stomped his feet a few times, and whisked his coat free of snow. He’d
expected the cash-strapped facility to be deserted, and was surprised to see
that wasn’t the case. The snow and cold had chased all but the hardiest souls
from the streets. He hoped he’d bought enough radios.

The squeak of the color wheel
changing the white artificial tree from amber to green, then red, blue, and
back to amber competed with the tinny music coming from an eight-track tape
player on the front desk. Philip recognized Joan Baez singing “Ave Maria” from
her newly released Christmas album. Are
eight-track tapes still albums? He wasn’t sure.

Boys playing Chinese checkers on
a card table near the white-flocked tree erupted into laughter. A shortage of
volunteers meant they lacked much in the way of parental influence,
supervision, or positive role models. Philip wished he had time to join them as
he walked toward the young man at the reception desk. The boy’s head was down,
the fingers of his left hand tangled in his bangs as he concentrated on the
fountain pen that danced across the page.